matei campan Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 (edited) hello, I hope that I'm in the right place to post this, because it's not quiet a sword, but it's more than a knife. a friend of mine asked me to make a replacement blade for a kindjal, the original has a repair attempt which make it worthless, as you can see in the pics. so I have to make something that look plausible. the kindjal has very nice hilt and scabbard, made of silver/niello with some gold accents. as blade material I started with an old file, which had a similar shape to the blade, but significantly shorter and with a "D" cross-section. I forged it and I obtained the exact shape of the blade, just the right thickness that after removing the forge oxidation, to have nothing more to grind. that was a big luck to find that old file there was a little challenge - to find the methods and the tools to reproduce the maker's mark and the grooves. for the mark I took a piece of coil spring steel, widened and upset the end to match the mark's size. then I took that end to yellow heat and "pressed" it on the mark, so to "copy" it to later "paste" on the new blade. all went all right, just the "pasted" mark on the new blade came out a bit tilt, but it doesn't seem such a problem as I saw some other marks on kindjal blades not beeing perfectly aligned.as for the grooves, after examining them, i realised that they aren't ground, but scraped with a draw scraper (if I'm using the terms well). I had to reproduce/mimic the same teture and irregularity as on the original. to make the tool I took a broken drill-bit of matching size to the grooves and weld it on the flat side of a piece of flat steel, perpendicular to the length. the cutting edge of the tool was made by cutting the drill's ungrooved side to an angle of, let say, 80 degrees. I hope you understand... It proved to be the right tool and method - the grooves get identical, with the same texture and irregularities as the original.then, after finishing the blade I gave it just enough patina to seem a bit aged. as usual, I put a lot of pics because I'm not able to choose between them Edited August 4, 2015 by matei campan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Cochran Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 That looks to be a pretty good lookin replica you've made. I think the little bit of patina you managed really adds to the piece. You are gonna show us pictures of it put back together, right?Do you happen to know what happened to the original for it to break like that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LastRonin Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 Good looking blade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 Very nice work, I do hope you placed YOUR makers mark on the tang somewhere, to prevent others from passing this off as original. This level of quality deserves to be recognized as your work as well as the smith that designed it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LastRonin Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 I had tried several times to post my concern about whether he could be considered to have forged a forgery. But kept getting "fforbidden". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neg Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Got a picture of this completed? Yeah, it might not be your design, but it's one of the most awesome blades I've seen and you really did a great job on it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted September 4, 2015 Share Posted September 4, 2015 Beautiful blade, but a real ethical question about the maker's mark. At very least, add your own touchmark; otherwise, it really is a forgery (even if you didn't intend it to be). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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